With the widespread proliferation of applications such as games, organizers, user interfaces applications, and the like, for portable electronic devices, wireless communication units, cellular handsets, and the like, and with the incompatibility of standard input devices such as joysticks, mice, or even touch pads with the portable nature of the devices, providing suitable input signals to such applications has become an important factor in product usability and enjoyment.
Portable electronic devices, because of their small size, often suffer limitations in the manner in which the user navigates menus, enters data, or otherwise provides input to applications running thereon. Keypads often have a relatively limited number of keys or buttons, and navigation controls such as joysticks and touchpads if adapted to the small size needed for use with the portable electronic device can be clumsy to use. Many existing portable electronic devices, in addition to number keys and auxiliary keys, have one or more arrow buttons built into the device for providing at least direction selectivity of device features and menu navigation. The small size of the arrow button(s) and the limited directional sensitivity can detract from the overall user experience. Thus the limitation in the availability of small-sized input technology can be an obstacle to convenient, efficient, and enjoyable use of portable electronic devices. Such input technology limitations become more noticeable when text must be entered, complex menus must be navigated, or high speed games are being played.